Share this:

British indie Dan “Tsukasa” Elvins has launched a Kickstarter for “a 2D hand painted, physics based Platformer set in Japans Genroku Period”. What that means is he’s creating a deeply pretty side-scroller called Kodama. The game features a vegetable protagonist, who has to balance water and sunlight uptake in the way in which he deals with puzzles, as well as respecting Shinto customs. Elvins asks: “Have you ever wanted to relax with a Kappa or play drums with a Tanuki?” Well, I actually haven’t, but I know a few Japanophiles who would. See more of the pitch below.

14 Comments

Lovely artstyle and I really like the unobtrusive UI idea, but I think platforms as stretch goals can be a bit problematic. If I only play on PC, why would I up my pledge if they are getting close to the xbox/playstation goal? And as they themselves point out, the platform owners could theoretically block them from a release.

I understand that the market, especially the indie market, is saturated with 2d platformers, however very few of these are physics based, LIMBO is 1 example, and there are 2 others I can’t recall the names of right now, but if you know many other please let me know, I was of the understanding that there aren’t many Physics Platformers, so I’d love to hear about the ones I missed. That isn’t intended as a type of sarcasm at all, I really am interesting in if I missed a large number of games, because mistakes do happen afterall.

The ones that came to mind instantly were Limbo and As Yet it Moves, they’re the most physics-y.

But a physics platformer is just a standard platformer. Yoshi’s Island is a physics platformer.

This was my thought while skimming the article. Cool artwork, interesting premise. Then I spot the Physics Platformer, and instantly think of Darius Kazemi’s Fuck Videogames. link to tinysubversions.com

Kentucky Route Zero (who also Kickstarted) actually started out as a platformer. Then they realised that platforming has nothing to offer the story that they wanted to tell.

I’ve not played ‘As Yet it Moves’, I hear its quite good though, the art style is interesting, there is of course LIMBO without a doubt.

A physics platformer in regards to Limbo or Kodama is not the same as a standard platformer however, the way you move and solve puzzles is entirely different. For what I want, I feel a 2D Platformer is best, I can think of now other genre where the premise would fit better, of course I’m not a genius so it is likely that there’s something I’m yet to consider, its like that with everything. If you had a suggestion I’d love to hear it, afterall the gamers are important to the resulting game, a game without gamers needent exist.